


There Were Many Betrayals

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: King Arthur (2004)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:40:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Betrayal...oh what a loaded weapon that was.</i>
</p>
<p>There have been a lot of betrayals that I have taken place in in my life. I have both betrayed and been betrayed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There Were Many Betrayals

**Author's Note:**

> **Inspirations:** Theatrical Muse Challenge #87 --- _Have you ever betrayed someone's confidence? Has anyone ever betrayed you? Write a ficlet on the theme of betrayal;_

_Betrayal...oh what a loaded weapon that was._

There have been a lot of betrayals that I have taken place in in my life. I have both betrayed and been betrayed.

Where do I start?

 

_*Guinevere sighed, looking down at the frayed knot of reddish leather that was braided and knotted into the hilt of her dagger.*_

 

In my own way... and in his view...I committed a betrayal on Gerard...

I was to marry Gerard one day when we both felt there was time to be at peace for a few days and we could make the necessary arrangements. We were inseperable for a very long time. We had grown up together, fought together and survived together.

He gave me this... _*Guinevere's hand touches the choker around her neck.*_ It was a precious gift that he had never taken off in the entire time I knew him. The arrowhead had been a gift from his mother and he had had it woven into the red leather choker. One night, he placed it around my neck. It was his way of telling me he was bound to me by heart and soul.

_*Guinevere's hand drops and her eyes cloud.*_

But the ties of love were not strong enough to keep us together and events came and divided us --- putting us on opposite sides of a great chasm.

Then Arthur came...

The minute I saw him, something forever changed inside me. I try to deny it to cast it aside, but Gerard could clearly see that something was changing with me. I still loved him, but there was something pulling me Arthur...and to Lancelot.

Merlin started talking about Arthur as if he was the savior to everything wrong with the land.

Things changed, people thought as Merlin did.

There were others, like my beloved, that did not. Merlin talking about Arthur and his knights like they were heroes rankled some of our people. Gerard had been a gifted student of Merlin's, but he had been brash and reckless as well. In times that would have been better served with taking a peaceful approach, Gerard would always want to take any disagreement to combat. There were reasons he didn't get further teaching in my father's secrets.

Then, the fight came. He had wanted to kill the Sarmatians and neither Merlin nor I would allow it to happen. By this time, I had been watching Arthur and Lancelot several times without them knowing and had fallen for the two knights. Gerard had challenged Merlin's authority and he had lost. Instead of being honourable and conceding the victory to Merlin gracefully, Gerard and some of his friends had split from the tribe. Gerard had demanded that I come come with him, but I had refused.

He had left, but not before he promised me that I would regret not choosing him over my father

Divisions happened. Tension started to rise...and I chose to stand with Merlin when he told us of the future he saw where Arthur was concerned.

Thus, I betrayed the man that had always offered me nothing but love and strength. 

You would think that after such a thing, the roads would twist and we would go our seperate ways and things would never again cause us to come together.

Fate and time play funny games with the lives of the ones in this world.

A few years went by and Gerard found me...

He slipped into the walls of our fortress and accosted me, telling me that if I didn't meet with him at dawn, Lancelot, my Lancelot would die.

My father once told me that no matter how hard you try, you can never outrun your past. He never explained anything about your past returning to threaten your future.

That is when I committed my second betrayal against someone I love. I left the castle and went to meet with Gerard as he demanded. I had to do anything I could to protect those I love. The words that day were harsh and painful as we both opened old wounds upon one another. Here he was, threatening all I held dear, and I still loved him.

The betrayal cost me in more ways than I can bear to count sometimes.

Gerard summoned me again, again telling me what would happen if I didn't meet with him or I didn't come alone. I had spent all night with Arthur and the Lancelot as we made plans on how to undermine the Saxons and capture Gerard. I went to see him...and he kissed me.

And thus, I inadvertantly betrayed Arthur and Lancelot. 

Lancelot was taken from us when we were ambushed by magic and Saxons. We thought he was dead. I had his sword...and I had Arthur.

But we had lost our soul.

We returned to our home in pieces. We started making plans on how we were going to avenge Lancelot. We knew what we were going to do. We were going to find all of the Saxons and wipe them out. It was no less than they wanted to do us and after Lancelot's disappearance...all I wanted was their heads. There was a plan and then...

And then...

 

_\---In her eyes, him giving her an order meant a variety of things. But right now, with everything going on, she had to know._

_"Answer me," she said in a voice she didn't recognize as her own. "Don't. You. Trust. Me?"_

_"I do not know," Arthur replied honestly, turning from her, hand on the door. "You were spotted outside the walls alone when I specifically asked that you and Lancelot stay within them. You were spotted kissing Gerard. Tell me, Guinevere, what am I supposed to do? Especially when you said nothing of it to me."_

_Guinevere stepped back._

_"I see. So, instead of simply asking me about it, you choose to believe..."_

_Guinevere shook her head and a tear slid down her cheek. "I was outside the walls because another message was delivered to me about the fact that if I did not meet with that bastard, Lancelot would be hurt again and I didn't want that to happen. He tried to convince me to come with him and told him that I loved you and I would go to any length I had to to prove I loved the two of you."_

_Guinevere swallowed, hurt forming a hard knot in her chest. "As for the kissing...he kissed me! I never touched him and he was gone before I could stab him."_

_Guinevere lifted her head and stiffened her spine, pain warring with anger that he could so easily believe the worst._

_"You think that I told him of the plan and that's why he was there. You think I'm the reason Lancelot was taken..."_

_"Right now, I'm not sure of anything," Arthur answered.---_

 

That threatened to break me. I had done the unthinkable and betrayed Arthur's trust. That betrayal with Gerard had led to Lancelot's capture and torture. It didn't matter what the circumstances had been or what had really happened. I had betrayed the men I loved by going to meet Gerard each time I was summoned.

Then, through all of this, I committed one final betrayal to him.

I disobeyed my King and left the fortress. I went directly to my father and requested warriors to go with me to fight to save my husband and my beloved from Gerard and the Saxons.

 

_\---"Guinevere...do not invite your death so easily," Merlin warned her as he studied her eyes. He could see that they were filled with a deep pain._

_"I have to do this, Father. It's the only way they'll be safe."_

_Merlin looked at her in sadness. "I have no desire to lose my daughter."_

_"Better a daughter than a king," she said softly._

_It was then that Merlin knew something had happened between Arthur and Guinevere. He could see the pain in her eyes, hear it in her voice._

_"What has happened?" he asked._

_Guinevere shook her head, not wanting to talk about it. But she couldn't lie to her father, either. "He doesn't trust me."_

_Merlin raised a brow. "He doesn't?"_

_"No," she said, tears threatening to flow again. It hurt to breathe. "He thinks I betrayed them to Gerard." She looked at her father. "That doesn't matter right now. What matters is that we get to them before Gerard kills them."---_

 

Everything was falling apart and in essence, I had set all of the events in motion when Gerard and I became divided.

I interfered in the confrontation between Arthur and Gerard. Before Arthur could say anything to me...I challenged Gerard to a fight to the death. I knew that had he been able to, Arthur would have stopped me. However, he had his arms full of a dying Lancelot so his attention was torn. I took the matter out of his hands.

As I faced Gerard on that battle ground so far away from where we used to be, I couldn't help but feel betrayed by everything he had done. He had betrayed my trust and he had betrayed my heart. I had never stopped loving him, but I could not support what he had become since his split from Merlin. I stared into his eyes as we fought and tried to figure out how all of this had come to pass. I looked in those angry eyes for the man I once knew...the man I once shared so much with.

In those final moments...I committed my last betrayal of Gerard.

I took the old crossbow bolt that had almost killed Lancelot and I plunged it into his heart. I held him as he died...as he told me that he was glad that I was the one taking his life...as he told me that he had never stopped loving me.

 

_*She raised a hand and unfastened the choker she had been wearing around her throat and looked at it. It was a leather choker, different shades of the red leather plaited into one another with a small silver arrowhead in the center of it. She ran her thumb over the arrowhead a few times and then put it back around her throat. The leather choker was kept for several reasons, and she wore it around her throat for many of them. One of the main reasons was that the leather covered the scar at her throat that had changed everything. It served to hide the scar that had been given to her on the orders of someone she had held very close. He hadn't ordered his Saxon to cut her throat like he had, but it was he who had set up that situation and allowed the Saxons to attack her and those she loved.*_

 

We all have betrayals and we all have symbols of them. The choker reminds me how very easy it is to become betrayed by those you hold close. It's a symbol that reminds me what even my smallest betrayals could have cost all of us.


End file.
